


Unseen Harm

by hit_the_books



Series: Hannibal Bingo Stories [1]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Drinking, F/M, M/M, Not Beta Read, Pining, Pre-Slash, Season/Series 03, Self-Hatred, Self-Loathing, Self-Reflection, will graham is not okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-09
Updated: 2020-09-09
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:40:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26378956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hit_the_books/pseuds/hit_the_books
Summary: Will can't sleep, so he leaves Molly in bed and finds anything but comfort in his own thoughts.
Relationships: Molly Graham/Will Graham, Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Series: Hannibal Bingo Stories [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1917094
Comments: 6
Kudos: 42
Collections: Hannibal Bingo





	Unseen Harm

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Hannibal Bingo and the square "A taste for it".

Will is meant to be asleep.

He’s not.

It’s another night where he is laid out in bed beside Molly, and his eyes are open as he stares off into the darkness of their room. The house is quiet and Will refuses to look at the clock beside their bed. But he can’t stop looking at the ghosts in his head.

Tonight it’s the turn of Chiyoh and a late night, three years old conversation. There’s nothing about being still in bed that reminds him of their train journey, but Will’s traitorous brain has dragged him there nonetheless. And because he’s thinking about _that_ conversation, he’s thinking about _him_. The impossibility that isn’t impossible, because Will is here and he is not the same man who Jack Crawford dragged away from a lecture room.

Chiyoh’s words echo inside Will like they’re once again in the same cabin. _“I wasn't becoming anything. I was standing still. Exactly where he left me standing. Like taxidermy.”_

“ _Hollowed out and filled with something else,”_ his memory says.

“ _Not something else. I'm not as malleable as you are… You have a taste for it now.”_

“ _A taste for what?”_

“ _Harm.”_

Will hasn’t killed anyone in a long time. But he is well aware of his capacity for harm, even now. Every second with Molly and Walter, Will is doing them harm. They may not sense it or see it, but Will is never fully present, never completely with them and because he can’t be with them wholly, they look for the part that is missing. They don’t say they are, of course, but it is there in the ways they speak, touch or listen to him. A hesitation because they don’t have all the facts or the whole man before them. And maybe Molly has an inkling of the shape of this unnamed absence, but she still doesn’t say anything about it. Never says.

There’s always a fragment of himself that’s shuttered away in Baltimore and Will both hates this and an emotion he can’t quite put his finger on. Or rather he doesn’t want to—because to acknowledge it and give name to that feeling betrays Molly and Walter again.

Sighing, Will gently eases himself out of bed, tucking the quilt back around Molly. He uses the bathroom and then heads on into the living room, wrapping himself in a blue knit blanket that usually occupies the back of the couch. His sweats peek out from underneath the blanket and his socked feet slide a little on the floorboards. Heading over to the “liquor cabinet” (just a cabinet that happens to hold bottles of spirits in it), Will pulls out a bottle of Bulleit Bourbon he’s been saving and goes in search of a glass.

Once he has a short sided tumbler, he returns to the living room and sets the glass on the coffee table to pour himself two fingers’ worth. He stoppers the bottle and sets it back down on the table. Picking up the glass, Will silently toasts the night with a loudly thought _“fuck you”_ and tips the bourbon down the hatch. The amber liquid burns smoothly along his throat and he grimaces as he swallows it down.

Will sets the glass on the table and pours three fingers more before picking it up again, but now he just holds the glass between his left fingers and sits back in the seat. The first glass of bourbon has calmed some of Will’s thoughts, made his body feel a little loose and tired, but he’s not going back to bed yet.

He trails his right fingers across the faint scar on his forehead and then pushes underneath the blanket and the Henley he’s wearing and feels at the smile that he’s left with. Will can’t help thinking of Hannibal as he touches each trace of him. And still Hannibal has no more harmed Will as much as Will has harmed himself in years gone past. Because despite his capacity to harm, the one Will has hurt the most is and always will be himself.

 _No, that’s a lie_ , Will thinks as he takes a sip of his second glass. _You’ve hurt many people as much as yourself_ , he adds and recalls that all this self-reflection is one of the reasons why he doesn’t drink normally. He hopes boozed up sleep will claim him before he digs too far inside his own head, but Will knows that he rarely gets what he hopes for.

 _What do I hope for?_ Will ponders, each sip making him more and more maudlin. Once upon a time, Will would have hoped for an end to the niggling desires crawling beneath his skin, the ones that told him he liked killing and now?

“Now I just wish I could be rid of you,” Will lies quietly to himself and the empty living room. “Because it’s you that makes me want to unleash myself. To step into that other self, perhaps my true self, and explore what I really am.” He strokes the scar on his belly, anger at himself growing and a (dare he call it) _longing_. “I should have just gone with you back when I had the chance. Should have just given up denying everything.”

Will gives a shuddering sob and sets down the almost finished glass. He curls up on the couch and lets himself start to cry though not loud enough to wake up Molly and Walter or the dogs. The tears just keep coming as Will’s mind serves up to him everything that he remembers—every kill, look, word or touch—and he just pulls the blanket tighter around himself.

A feeling of loss sits in his chest, and Will knows that if he was to just drive to Baltimore, he could make that feeling press down less, just lift it away a bit. But he can’t go and do that, he can’t. He can’t go and piece himself back together, because then he’ll never be able to come back to Molly and Walter. He won’t be able to return to some sense of normalcy.

“I can’t see you,” Will sobs. “I can’t. I’m sorry,” he says to a man who isn’t there. “If I do… I…”

Will looks towards the front door out of the home he’s built with Molly. With his _wife_ and his legs tremble under him. He sways to his feet, each step taking with it the chance he’ll fall on his ass, socks sliding, and roams over to the door. His right hand hovers in front of the lock and chain, while the fingers on his left fiddle with his wedding ring. The blanket just hangs off of him. He wouldn’t get very far without a car, but then if he just disappears and doesn’t take a car, no one will find him.

At least, no one will find him until he crawls into the BSHCI and then gets locked up there with everyone else the moment he sets foot inside.

 _I could leave tonight_ , Will hesitates and turns back to look towards the bowl where the car keys are nestled. _I could get dressed and go. Slip out. Take a car. Change the plates. Something. Just keep driving until…_ Will swallows and heaves out a shaky breath. Tears prick freshly at his eyes and he turns away from the front door.

A moment later, Will settles back down on the couch again, this time lying out on the smooth fabric. He huddles under the blanket, not wanting to go back to Molly. Not wanting to do more harm than he already has, but inevitably continues to do so with each waking moment that he is not at Hannibal’s side.

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments appreciated.
> 
> I'm [hitthebookspost](https://twitter.com/hitthebookspost) on Twitter. See my [carrd here](https://hit-the-books.carrd.co/).


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